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Connect_CRM Oracle Integration
We are working on batch integration with Oracle eBusiness Suite. Basically, we just want orders/sales history captured in Oracle to be available (view only) in Salesforce.com.
Right now, we're planning to build a custom object in Salesforce.com, pull a nightly extract from Oracle which will feed into the custom object, and then create customer ID's in Salesforce.com accounts that can be used to create a "related list" view of our Oracle information in Salesforce.com. We will write a bit of sForce code to import the Oracle extract each evening into SF.com.
What are your thoughts on this approach?
One issue we are going to have is with customer ID's. In Oracle, there will clearly be multiple copies of some customer records with different IDs. Has anyone developed a best practice for resolving this situation? Is it better to dynamically create our own ID (based on zip code / address), use the existing customer ID from Oracle (with the understanding that this will not fully link in all necessary data), or is there another approach that we're missing here?
Thanks for any words of wisdom.
Right now, we're planning to build a custom object in Salesforce.com, pull a nightly extract from Oracle which will feed into the custom object, and then create customer ID's in Salesforce.com accounts that can be used to create a "related list" view of our Oracle information in Salesforce.com. We will write a bit of sForce code to import the Oracle extract each evening into SF.com.
What are your thoughts on this approach?
One issue we are going to have is with customer ID's. In Oracle, there will clearly be multiple copies of some customer records with different IDs. Has anyone developed a best practice for resolving this situation? Is it better to dynamically create our own ID (based on zip code / address), use the existing customer ID from Oracle (with the understanding that this will not fully link in all necessary data), or is there another approach that we're missing here?
Thanks for any words of wisdom.
Hi Connect_CRM,
Creating the custom object(s) to contain the orders/sales history will not be difficult. The relating the new objects to accounts will involve creating a relationship between the custom objects and the account object. When doing this, you do not have the option of assigning the primary key/foreign key relationship to the custom field you mentioned that contains an Oracle customer id.
When creating a a relationship to an account (or any other object), a field is added to the custom object that can reference only the Id of the master record. So, when creating the custom object record, you will need to have the account id that you want to add the history to. To get the account id, you will want to, as you mentioned, create a custom field on account that holds the Oracle customer id. Then, you can use that field to lookup and return the correct account id for the history records you are adding.
Thanks DevAngel,
We're actually familiar with the process of creating links between a custom object and the account object using SFDCs Account ID. I was hoping to learn more about the best practices for this type of integration in terms of:
* Handling duplicate records in the account system (in this case, Oracle eBusiness Suite)
* Cross-referencing multiple Oracle Customer_ID numbers to SFDC account ID numbers
* Creating exception reports for a nightly batch update process
Any thoughts on these topics?
Thanks again.